To the Party Membership[1]

Written:Written in the latter half of January 1904Published:First published in 1929 inLenin Miscellany X.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      publisher??,pubdate??,

      Moscow,Volume 7,

      pages140-144.Translated:Fineberg AbrahamTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2002

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
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Acircle or a party? That is the question our Central Organ
      has posed for discussion.

Weconsider discussion of this question to be exceed ingly
      timely. We invite the editorial board of our Central Organ to
      begin by taking a look at itself. What is this editorial board?
      Is it a circle of persons who have been together for so-and-so
      many years and who have now forced their way on to the editorial
      board by means of a boycott, disruptive activities and the
      threat of a split, or is it a body of officials of our Party?

Donot try to evade the point by saying that you were co-opted
      legally, in accordance with the Rules. We do not question the
      legality of it; but we invite you not to con fine yourselves to
      the formal aspect, but to answer the sub stance of our
      question. We want, not merely a juridical, but a political
      answer. And we want that answer fromyou, gentlemen,
      “editors” who were never elected by the Congress,
      never appointed by the Party, and not from Comrade Plekhanov,
      who, perhaps, had no alternative but to co-opt you in order to
      avoid a split.

Areyou a circle or a body of Party officials?

Ifyou are a circle, then why this hypocrisy and sham, these
      phrases about a party? Have you not, in reality, disrupted that
      Party, mocking for weeks and months at its institutions and its
      Rules? Have you not, in reality, repudiated the decisions of
      the Second Congress of that Party, have you not brought matters
      to the point of a split, have you not refused to submit to the
      Central Committee and the Council? Have you not placed
      yourselves outside the Partyby saying that for you Party congresses are not divine, i.e., not
      binding? You trample upon the institutions and laws of the Party and
      at the same time are pleased to use the imprint “Central Party
      Organ"!

Butif you are Party officials, would you mind explaining to the Party
      why, and in the name of what, persons who were not appointed by the
      Congress insisted on ensconcing themselves in a central Party
      institution? Perhaps in the name of the “continuity” of
      the old family circle of editors? To think that people who at the
      League Congress passed resolutions about this philistine
      “continuity” now want to bamboozle us with talk of the
      Party! Why, what right have you to talk of a party?

Youdescribe as formalists those who take their stand on the formal
      decisions of the Second Congress—because you must blur and gloss
      over the fact that you havebetrayed the trustof your
      comrades,who, every one of them, pledged themselves over and over
      again to obey the decisions of the Congress. You do not submit to
      formal decisions when they are against you, but at the same time you
      unblushingly invoke the formal rights of the League when those rights
      are to your advantage, you invoke the formal decisions of the Party
      Council now that you have managed, against the Party’s will, to
      insinuate yourselves into this, the supreme Party institution.

Youdescribe as bureaucrats those who hold Party posts by the will of
      the Party Congress, not the caprice of an 6migr6 circle of
      writers. You have to do this to cover up the disagreeable fact that
      it is indeed a spirit of bureaucracy, a spirit of place-hunting that
      obsesses those who just could not bring themselves to work in the
      Party except as members of its central institutions. Yes, your
      behaviour has indeed clearly shown us that our Party suffers from a
      spirit of bureaucracy that puts office above work and shuns neither
      boycott nor disruption in the effort to get into office.

Youdescribe as grossly mechanical decisions passed by a majority vote
      at the Party Congress, but you do not consider grossly mechanical and
      scandalous the methods of struggle in the colonies abroad and at the
      League Congress which gained you your shameful victory over our Party
      editorial board! You do not see anything hypocritical inprotestations of recognising the Party being made by people who have
      fought for and obtained control of the Central Party Organ although
      they were aminorityat the Party Congress!

Andyou call these hypocritical efforts to whitewash your indecent,
      anti-Party behaviour, this preaching of anarchy, this mockery of the
      Party Congress, this opportunist justifying of circle
      philistinism—you call this your new organisational standpoint!

Comrades!Those who are serious in counting themselves members of the
      Party must raise an emphatic voice of pro test and put a stop to this
      shameful state of affairs! Those who are serious aboutIskra’sthree years of work and the Party Congress which it
      prepared, and which expressed the will of those Russian
      Social-Democrats who are really convinced on the basis of principle
      and are really working, will never allow an 6migr6 circle to trample
      underfoot all that this Party Congress achieved.

Eitherwe have no party and are completely in the power of an 6migr6
      writers’ editorial circle that our Congress rejected—and in that
      case, away with this hypocritical talk of a party, away with the false
      imprints of “Party” publications, organs and institutions!
      We are not the Socialist-Revolutionaries, we have no need of painted
      scenery. The party of the proletariat demands the truth. The party of
      the proletariat demands the ruthlessly outspoken exposure of the
      obsolete circle spirit. We must have the courage to admit that there
      is no party and set to work from the beginning, from the very
      beginning, to create and build up a real party. We shall not be
      daunted by the temporary victory of the circle spirit, we believe and
      know that the class-conscious Russian proletariat will be able to
      build itself a party in fact, and not just in name, a party in the
      sense of genuine party institutions, not in the sense of false
      imprints.

Orwe do have a party—and in that case, away with all circle
      interests, away with gatherings of 6migr6 rowdies! In that case, let
      ourPartyeditorial board be vacated at once by those not
      appointed to it by the Party Congress. In that case, let the editorial
      board of the Central Organ berestored as elected by the Congress. In that case, letourParty organ advocate the views of the Party
      majority, letourParty organ defend Party organisation
      and the Party institutions instead of trampling them in the mud.

Downwith the circle spirit, and, first of all, down with it on
      our Party editorial board!

Downwith disrupters!

Longlive the party of the proletariat, a party able to observe
      in practice the decisions of the Party Congress and to respect
      Party discipline and organisation!

Downwith hypocritical talk and false imprints!

[1]This appeal was written by Lenin in connection with Martov’s article
      “Problems of the Day (A Circle or a Party?)" inIskra, No. 56
      (January 1,1904).